GATHERING OF SUSTAINABILITY MINDS AT THE 2025 NY SUN WORKS YOUTH CONFERENCE BY MARCUS FIQUET AND SEBASTIAN FIQUET

June 4, 2025

NY Sun Works is a nonprofit organization that helps students learn about taking care of the Earth and being eco-friendly. Since 2011, NY Sun Works has organized a youth conference each year, where students can share their discoveries in hydroponics with their peers from other schools. This year’s theme was ‘Discovering Sustainability Science’ and it was all about teaching students smart ways to protect our planet.

On May 2nd, 2025, the Javits Center in NYC welcomed over 900 students from elementary to high school for the NY Sun Works Youth Conference. Joyce Leveston, CEO of the Javits Center, highlighted the special setting, where students can “enjoy the farm and the view of the waters around NYC,” while sharing their research and their science projects about helping the earth.

This year, six enthusiastic 5th graders from PS 199 were among the attendees. We participated in the presentations, learned a lot from other attendees, and had an awesome experience!

The conference presentations were categorized under three themes: Grow, Innovate and Act:

First, during Session 1 – Grow, we observed a presentation called “Hydroponics vs Soil Plant Growth,” during which students showed how they grew plants using a hydroponics kit “that’s growing without soil!” One school compared hydroponically grown plants with soil-grown plants and found that hydroponic systems use less water and less CO2 but use more energy and are more expensive to maintain. Another school discovered that roots grow downward due to gravity and without gravity they would have trouble growing in the hydroponic system. Some schools used leftover plants to create items such as art and jewelry: “We realized one day that sometimes we have too many plants. While harvesting, there was an overflow of plants that not everybody was able to take home. So we came up with an idea: What if we turned them into everyday art and jewelry?”

PS 199 presented on Integrated Pest Management. This presentation shared different ways to get rid of harmful insects called Thrips and discovered that we could get rid of bad bugs with good bugs like Ladybugs, Minute Pirate Bugs, Hypoaspis Miles and Green Lacewings.

In Session II – Innovate, students made up awesome inventions like living statue gardens and systems where fish provide nutrients for growing hydroponic plants. We also saw a presentation from NASA Program Scientist Dr. Elison Blancaflor who spoke about how NASA was looking for ways to grow vegetables in space to help absorb CO2 and emit oxygen. We learned that astronauts really miss eating fresh vegetables when they are in orbit.

Hunter College Elementary School used different colored plastic screens to test which color of light helps plants grow faster. They discovered that under yellow light, lettuce grew the fastest and red light came in second and they said, “this is not consistent with most of the published literature.” Jocelyn from José Marti STEM Academy in New Jersey studied water transfer from root to treetops and suggested that hydroponic growth can be a more stable environment for growth because of the increased droughts: “Tree species like Sugar Maple and Black Walnut that once thrived in stable climates and environments are now under stress.”

Third, in Session III – Act, we learned how to help our neighborhoods be greener. One school looked at the nutrients in hydroponically grown cucumbers. Another school investigated how to cross pollinate peppers to get the best taste. And yet another school showed the health benefits of tea and the potential for faster growth of tea leaves in a hydroponic system.

The NY Sun Works conference gave its farmer scientists a chance to share what they learned while working on our projects, while learning from each other at the conference. And finally, we learned that communication is just as important as innovation.

The NY Sun Works conference is a way to share our discoveries, learn from each other, and to inspire the future. It was super fun and made us want to help save the planet even more!